Favourite OS?

[akiru]

I started out with Suse and moved to Gentoo Linux which ive been using now for about a year. Its package management system kicks ass and the fact that its a source based distribution means that software you compile is optimized for your box.

akiru

[DenisF]

I'm a Mand0rk, just love the way they do things.
had my share of 'fun' with RH9/FCx and well.. basicly.. they suck

ow and out of the BSD's, FreeBSD is me heartie

[afonic]

I like SuSE, since I use Linux for desktop use and not server / workstation it's is just what I need: Fast and easy!

[sjaz]

<3 FBSD

[akiru]

sjaz, if you like FreeBSD you should check out gentoo. It works with a BSD-style ports system with a tonne of extra features.

http://gentoo.org

Because its source based though it can take quite a long time to install depending on how fast your processor is and how much ram you have available, so it isnt something for everyone..

akiru

[akiru]

I'm a Mand0rk, just love the way they do things.
had my share of 'fun' with RH9/FCx and well.. basicly.. they suck

ow and out of the BSD's, FreeBSD is me heartie

What are the ways that they do things that you like? Im always interested to know why people like their particular distribution. Package management? User support? etc..

akiru

[DenisF]

Well for one i love the organization, mandrake's much "cleaner" than RHx/FCx [can't really explain this one]

i also like their ADVX software [a highly optimized apache], and the fact that they always keep their software -very- up-to-date [ex. MySQL4 on mandrake10.1, while FC3 still defaults to MySQL3]

And generally mandrakesoft are very community-oriented people, something that redhat now attempt with fedora.

Ow and speaking of gentoo, never in my life would i run gentoo on a production server, and this opinion is shared among everyone who knows a thing or two about linux [except the gentoo fans, who will crucify me for saying this].
as a desktop - sure, it's "usable". but a server? [mission critical, or otherwise] no way in hell.

[akiru]

Well for one i love the organization, mandrake's much "cleaner" than RHx/FCx [can't really explain this one]

i also like their ADVX software [a highly optimized apache], and the fact that they always keep their software -very- up-to-date [ex. MySQL4 on mandrake10.1, while FC3 still defaults to MySQL3]

And generally mandrakesoft are very community-oriented people, something that redhat now attempt with fedora.

Ow and speaking of gentoo, never in my life would i run gentoo on a production server, and this opinion is shared among everyone who knows a thing or two about linux [except the gentoo fans, who will crucify me for saying this].
as a desktop - sure, it's "usable". but a server? [mission critical, or otherwise] no way in hell.

Im not sure that all people clued up with linux would have those opinions about gentoo but I understand where you are coming from. You see, it is a common misconception that because you can run an unstable gentoo system (and many people do so because they want bleeding edge performance) that gentoo is a bad distro to run a server with because it is unstable.

Allow me to quickly put this myth to rest. Because you install gentoo from scratch you can install any version of any package you want, you can use stable packages or hardmasked packages. This coupled with the fact that it is a source based distribution (meaning that all compiled software can make full use of your processor's instructions/capabilities) means that you can have a system that shows bleeding edge performance or a system that runs older packages that are deemed to be stable.

One of the wonderful things about gentoo is the USE flags. A setup for a workstation isnt the same as a setup for a server or a gaming machine and so on. The same is true for the features a certain package should provide support for. If you are not a gnome user why compile those packages with support for gnome if there is no need?

Anyways, it was cool to hear what you thought. Maybe some other people will reply too.

EDIT: one last thing, gentoo is also very much a community oriented distro. Hop onto irc.freenode.net and compare the number of users in #gentoo to that of #debian, #fedora, #slackware, #mandrake etc.. The same is true on the forums of the gentoo website.

akiru

[DenisF]

Yeah, sure, you can.
but if one wants to nit-pick every piece of software that will run on one's server, that's just too time consuming [and we all know that time = money].

What would you say, the avarage time to build a full-scale web server [apache2, php, mysql, some MTA & FTP server, pop3 + imap, etc' etc'] from a stage2 gentoo install?
a week or so of compiling?

Compare that to [any] 'normal' linux distro, which uses the rpm way of things, that can be set up in a matter of a few hours.

And the 'bleeding edge' performance of gentoo over other distros is fubricated at best.
especially since just about every distro is now compiled for i686 [except fedora, who insist on using i386].

I just don't see how it's worth to spend a week of compiling your server, when it gives absolutly no benifit over a server that runs e.g mandrake 10.1 that was setup in just a few hours.

[akiru]

Yeah, sure, you can.
but if one wants to nit-pick every piece of software that will run on one's server, that's just too time consuming [and we all know that time = money].

From a business point of view, i agree with you entirely. You want a platform that you can deploy and maintain very quickly, but the that is only under the assumption that this is for business and that the decicion is made to compile from source.

What would you say, the avarage time to build a full-scale web server [apache2, php, mysql, some MTA & FTP server, pop3 + imap, etc' etc'] from a stage2 gentoo install?
a week or so of compiling?

Without X? <24 hours, assuming the user knows what they are doing. If i were to do a GRP install then it could be done in a matter of hours, just like Mandrake, with the added advantage of the other features that gentoo has which could be made use of when installing other software if desired.

Compare that to [any] 'normal' linux distro, which uses the rpm way of things, that can be set up in a matter of a few hours.

Agreed, other distros are capable of installing packages via rpm in a matter of hours, (hardware permitting).

And the 'bleeding edge' performance of gentoo over other distros is fubricated at best.
especially since just about every distro is now compiled for i686 [except fedora, who insist on using i386].

I have seen benchmarks and i have also made my own. Whilst i cant speak for others i can assure you my own are not fabricated. Also, if you are not using a i686 processor then a i686 optimization isnt very useful. Think about compiling a kernel. Most gentoo users compile their own kernel's. Again, i cant comment on users of the other distributions but when compiling a kernel manually the processor Arch is a key option to set correctly. P3 and P4 come under the i686 architecture but its important to compile the kernel specifically for the processor. Im just saying why limit it to just the kernel? With gentoo you can have an optimized system too.

In my make.conf i can specify compile formy Centrino processor as a P3 chip if i want and it will work, but since there are flags for the Pentium-M processor why waste let the extra instructions my processor can follow go to waste.

The time it would take to get a box up and running with the software you have specified would depend entirely on the hardware in question. Whilst gentoo would work on lower spec machines i agree that it would take much more time to compile all the packages and that may not be something that is for everyone.

I just don't see how it's worth to spend a week of compiling your server, when it gives absolutly no benifit over a server that runs e.g mandrake 10.1 that was setup in just a few hours.

Im not sure how weve gone from a it taking half a week of compile time (which remains disputed) to a week. Have you actually installed gentoo before? I dont know anyone off hand who has tried gentoo and hasnt loved it. The other advantage of gentoo is that you can install precompiled binaries just like you can do with any other distribution, but most people use portage to automatically download, configure/compile the software and install it.

Anyway, i guess the important thing is that you are happy with Mandrake because thats what is best for you. I dont mean for this to turn into a thread on distro wars so ill leave it here.

akiru

[DenisF]

From a business point of view, i agree with you entirely. You want a platform that you can deploy and maintain very quickly, but the that is only under the assumption that this is for business and that the decicion is made to compile from source.

If you choose not to compile gentoo from source, you lose the whole gentoo 'thing' -the fact that it's a highly optimized distro built by-and-for your own pc.

Without X? <24 hours, assuming the user knows what they are doing. If i were to do a GRP install then it could be done in a matter of hours, just like Mandrake, with the added advantage of the other features that gentoo has which could be made use of when installing other software if desired.

<24 hours?
Maybe if you have a 3ghz pentium IV or something like that, but for the 'avarage joe' linux server [the stuff we run polarhome on], it would take a heck lot more than that [think days]

I have seen benchmarks and i have also made my own. Whilst i cant speak for others i can assure you my own are not fabricated. Also, if you are not using a i686 processor then a i686 optimization isnt very useful. Think about compiling a kernel. Most gentoo users compile their own kernel's. Again, i cant comment on users of the other distributions but when compiling a kernel manually the processor Arch is a key option to set correctly. P3 and P4 come under the i686 architecture but its important to compile the kernel specifically for the processor. Im just saying why limit it to just the kernel? With gentoo you can have an optimized system too.

Actually, the higher you go on the 'optimization ladder' [so to speak], the higher performance you'll get.
e.g if you have a pentium4, you will get that little speed advantage even when going from i586 to i686 compile, albeit not being very large.
And actually, iv'e done those custom kernel compiles one time too many in my life, and a kernel that's built for P3 gave absolutly no performance over the standard i586 kernel that comes with mandrake.
[i did my benches in php rendering, which is the server's role, for the most part]

In my make.conf i can specify compile formy Centrino processor as a P3 chip if i want and it will work, but since there are flags for the Pentium-M processor why waste let the extra instructions my processor can follow go to waste.

Compile flags are way overrated, honestly.
Try using a "highly optimized" firefox build, against a "normal" firefox build -there are plenty of those to go around.
the optimized one gives little to no advantage, and in some cases even cripples performance.
[but that's just an example]

Im not sure how weve gone from a it taking half a week of compile time (which remains disputed) to a week. Have you actually installed gentoo before? I dont know anyone off hand who has tried gentoo and hasnt loved it.

Yeah, i have installed Gentoo before. on a P200MMX machine with 64mb of EDO DRAM, and believe me - it was hell.
i think i spent an entire week if not more watching X and KDE compile.

Anyway, i guess the important thing is that you are happy with Mandrake because thats what is best for you. I dont mean for this to turn into a thread on distro wars so ill leave it here.

Can't argue over matters of taste [and this is definitely one], but i see no harm in productive discussions about it

[akiru]

Awk.. i promised myself i wasnt going to get dragged back into this but well.. here goes, afterall this is in the name of 'productive discussion'

Im i right in understanding that your main point is that from a business perspective gentoo takes way too long to setup? The reason i ask is that when i mentioned the <24 compile time i was actually quoting that of my own machine (which though granted it isnt a computer from the 70's isnt a Pentium 4 3Ghz either. The clockspeed is infact 1.4Ghz but thats irrelevant) you pointed out that on the other end of the scale with a P200 it would compile very slowly.

Whilst i realise that it isnt impossible for a business to install an OS on a box with that spec, is it fair to say that they will probably be packing much heavier hardware? Anything from 2.5Ghz P4 chips to Dual Xeon chips etc.. which would mean that spending a week compiling (which you mentioned in your post) would kinda not matter too much because it is an example that is right at the other end of the range of extremes.

Anywaaaaays.. im going to enjoy the rest of my milkshake now..

Ciao

akiru

[DenisF]

You wouldn't believe how many businesses/schools/sohos still use PMMX/P2 based hardware, for the mere fact that linux performs extremely well on those pieces of crap [pardon my french ]

It all boils down to what hardware you plan to install <anything> on, and how much time you're willing to spend on setting it up.

From my point of view, setting a small file server [say, a p266MMX with some 128mb of sdram, and a couple of the biggest hard drives it can run] isn't a task that i'm willing to spend even hours on.
So my choice is either get a "highly optimized" gentoo setup, for whatever amount of time it costs my employer.
or i can get the whole thing done with in a matter of minutes, by setting up mandrake [or whatever other 'mainstream' distro] with just the basics, and an ftp server.

Would those "optimizations" matter to my employer?
would he really be happy to pay me 3 if not 5 times the salary, just for their sake?
or would i do my job in 30~50 minutes, and he'll be so happy about my professionalizm [speed of work] that he'll hire me again?

that's a choice that both me and him will have to make.
I, for one, choose the latter.

PS
isn't it a bit cold for milkshakes now?

[akiru]

You wouldn't believe how many businesses/schools/sohos still use PMMX/P2 based hardware, for the mere fact that linux performs extremely well on those pieces of crap [pardon my french ]

It all boils down to what hardware you plan to install <anything> on, and how much time you're willing to spend on setting it up.

From my point of view, setting a small file server [say, a p266MMX with some 128mb of sdram, and a couple of the biggest hard drives it can run] isn't a task that i'm willing to spend even hours on.
So my choice is either get a "highly optimized" gentoo setup, for whatever amount of time it costs my employer.
or i can get the whole thing done with in a matter of minutes, by setting up mandrake [or whatever other 'mainstream' distro] with just the basics, and an ftp server.

Would those "optimizations" matter to my employer?
would he really be happy to pay me 3 if not 5 times the salary, just for their sake?
or would i do my job in 30~50 minutes, and he'll be so happy about my professionalizm [speed of work] that he'll hire me again?

that's a choice that both me and him will have to make.
I, for one, choose the latter.

PS
isn't it a bit cold for milkshakes now?

Oookkkkkkkkk i think youve made your point. :roll::roll: When you put it like that i guess i cant help but agree with you. Its prolly the same reason so many companies use Microsoft OS for their servers because of the simplicity of setting it up and such. But we all know that Linux pwns Windows allday everyday

Ta ta

akiru

PS: yeah but i still love em

[s1cko_debian]

I'm studying to be a web designer / coder. My dad always used Apple computers so I got used to the Mac system. Some people think of Mac OS a "pretty" software, and talking about Mac OS X because, let's be hones the look of the 8.1 OS was like . Anyway, im posting just to let know that I'm one of those Mac fanatics, since I use it for Graphic design (Photoshop CS etc.) and not to mention that the OS itself, besides being very stable, its a very simple minimalistic looking OS. I just love it.

Sorry for my english, I'm from Portugal so it's not my fault to be 17 years old and not speaking 100% correct eng.

Sicko

[Matej]

I'm studying to be a web designer / coder. My dad always used Apple computers so I got used to the Mac system. Some people think of Mac OS a "pretty" software, and talking about Mac OS X because, let's be hones the look of the 8.1 OS was like . Anyway, im posting just to let know that I'm one of those Mac fanatics, since I use it for Graphic design (Photoshop CS etc.) and not to mention that the OS itself, besides being very stable, its a very simple minimalistic looking OS. I just love it.

Sorry for my english, I'm from Portugal so it's not my fault to be 17 years old and not speaking 100% correct eng.

Sicko

Well that makes 2 of us. (notice the avatar)
It's like linux (well in fact it is linux) just with a nicer KDE.

[s1cko_debian]

I never really understood this about Mac OS X. I mean, I keep listening people talking about that it's a better looking Linux, as you said with a better KDE. But "how much" Linux is it?

I'm aware that it's an UNIX based OS, whatever that means. Unlike the other versions of the Mac OS this one seems to be the best coded.

Can someone tell why? I really dont seem to be getting it.

Sicko

[Matej]

If you fire up the terminal you'll see something like this:

And darwin is based on BSD (unix) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Darwin

[afonic]

Linux (as in linux distros), MacOS, Solaris etc are all based on the same stuff. You can see that from packages that are ported around (for example Solaris GUI is based on Gnome and the browser is no other than Mozilla).

However each of them are being used for different stuff. (MacOS is amateur-friendly, Solaris is more corporate-based, linux is used for server and power desktop users etc).

[stiffanbond]

My favorite Operation System is Windows XP. I will always keep it on my computer and not part with it.It doesn't give me any problems to speak of..no way would I move up to Vista.